National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NAATI is an Australian government-owned company established in 1977 to establish and maintain standards for interpreting and translation. NAATI is the only officially recognised authority for accreditation of interpreters and translators in Australia, and recognises four levels of ability in each discipline:
- Paraprofessional Translator (formerly known as level 2)
- Paraprofessional Interpreter (formerly known as level 2)
- Professional Translator (formerly known as level 3)
- Professional Interpreter (formerly known as level 3)
- Advanced Translator (formerly known as level 4)
- Conference Interpreter (formerly known as level 4)
- Advanced Translator (Senior) (formerly known as level 5)
- Conference Interpreter (Senior) (formerly known as level 5)
There is an additional category of 'Language Aide', not considered an interpreter or translator, which was formerly known as level 1, as well as 'Recognition' which is only granted in languages that NAATI does not currently test in. Recognition has no specification of level of proficiency.
NAATI publishes a quarterly newsletter for people to keep abreast of what is happening within NAATI and the Australian translating and interpreting community, as well as a number of publications and products designed to aid translators and interpreters (such as the Directory of Accredited and Recognised Practitioners' of Translation and Interpreting, which is available for free online).
Contents |
[edit] Training and Workshops
NAATI offices in all states and territories of Australia run various workshops for candidates in order to assist them in successfully obtaining their accreditation, and cover such topics as:
- Insights into interpreting
- Ethics and professional conduct
- Note taking
- Basic interpreting and translating techniques
- Test preparation
[edit] Testing
NAATI runs an on-demand testing program. The annual testing program formerly ran over a twelve month period starting in July each year with translation tests in November and interpreting tests from March to June. The annual testing program was phased out on 1 July 2009.
In order to be eligible for a test, candidates must satisfy a number of criteria based on the test level for which they are applying ranging from (at the Paraprofessional level):
- Having general education equivalent to at least 4 years of Australian secondary school
- Providing evidence of proficiency in both languages
- Having a minimum of 3 years work experience in any field
to having either general education to degree or diploma level in any field and/or NAATI accreditation as a Paraprofessional Interpreter in the language they are seeking accreditation (at the Professional Interpreter and Translator levels).
Accreditation at the levels of Advanced Translator/Conference Interpreter and Advanced Translator (senior)/Conference Interpreter (senior) is currently unavailable through the testing method.
[edit] List of languages tested by NAATI
Albanian, Alyawarra, Amharic, Arabic, Assyrian, Auslan, Bangla, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cantonese, Chinese (translation only), Croatian, Czech, Dari, Djambarrpuyngyu (interpreting only), Dutch, English (translator only), Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hakka (interpreter only), Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Kriol (interpreter only. Which type is not specified), Kurdish (Kurmanji), Kurdish (Sorani), Lao, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Mandarin, Persian, Pitjantjatjara (interpreter only), Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Pushto, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Tamil, Tetum (interpreter only), Thai, Tigrinya, Tongan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Warlpiri (interpreter only), Western Arrernte (interpreter only), Yankunytjatjara (interpreter only).
